Michael-Michael Addition Reactions Promoted by Secondary Amine-Thiourea: Stereocontrolled Construction of Barbiturate-Fused Tetrahydropyrano Scaffolds and Pyranocoumarins.

Bifunctional secondary amine-thiourea organocatalysts were successfully applied in the stereocontrolled synthesis of barbiturate-fused tetrahydropyrano scaffolds. Compared with typically used tertiary amine-thiourea organocatalysts, the developed catalysts exhibited excellent catalytic performance in the domino Michael-Michael reaction between N, N'-dimethylbarbituric acid and Morita-Baylis-Hillman acetates of nitroalkenes to yield pharmaceutically important heterocycles in good yields with excellent enantioselectivities. Moreover, this catalytic protocol can also be applied to synthesize biologically active pyranocoumarin compounds.